Russia drone strike ‘targeted’ Boris Johnson train in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine—A Russian drone struck a train near the Ukraine- Poland border on Sunday shortly after senior visiting officials—including the former prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Sweden—passed through, Ukraine’s state rail operator said.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, a diplomatic train carrying Boris Johnson, Carl Bildt and security advisers from several European Union states had purposely left the station at Yahodyn ahead of schedule. The visitors were on their way back from a security conference in Kyiv.
“It is highly probable that the Russian drone’s intended target was in fact the diplomatic train, which had departed the station earlier than scheduled,” the company said in a Telegram post.
Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, shared a video on X of the attack at Yahodyn station, near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing with Poland.
“This wasn’t our train, but the one just minutes after us by the Polish border crossing,” Bildt said. “It was evacuated as the Russian drone approached and no one was hurt. Very good safety system. Our train just had an evacuation warning.”
Ex-CIA chief on another train
Bildt, Johnson and fellow passengers had been in Kyiv for the Yalta European Strategy conference, which is an annual gathering of leaders and experts across politics, business, security and media.
Another train, with former CIA Director David Petraeus on board, was still at Yahodyn station when the drone struck, according to Ukrzaliznytsia.
There were no immediate reports of casualties on any of the trains.
Ukrzaliznytsia said it “constantly adjusts train schedules” to guard against strikes.
“I don’t know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning,” Johnson wrote in a post on X.
“What we can say for sure is that this is the kind of random and senseless attack Ukrainians are enduring every day—even on civilian railways,” he added.
‘Deliberate’ attack
Poland and Ukraine denounced Russian strikes close to the Polish border as an “escalation” in the war.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had “deliberately” struck the locomotive.
“It is precisely to prevent these strikes from spreading further into Europe that Ukrainian men and women fight every day, give their lives, and do not allow the aggression to expand,” Zelenskyy said.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s main allies and, with Ukrainian airspace closed, trains to Poland have been one of the main routes out of the war-torn country, used by refugees.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk chaired an emergency meeting in Warsaw following the strikes, warning he expected Russia to escalate the war “in the coming weeks.”
He added: “We cannot exclude that the escalation will also affect our territory … I hope not.”
Russia said it had hit “railway infrastructure used to transport military cargo” from European countries.
The strikes came as US President Donald Trump called on Zelenskyy to halt attacks on Russian refineries, saying it was causing a shortage of diesel fuel and “there are plenty of other targets.”
